The Shamrock Plant, Oxalis regnellii

Many of us celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by wearing green or drinking green beer. Being half Irish on both sides of the family, I also celebrate by cooking corned beef and cabbage, with Irish soda bread on the side. And I typically buy a Shamrock Plant: Oxalis regnellii. Shamrock is a tender pot-plant that grows from an underground rhizome. The plant is ideal for the holiday because it has the trifoliate leaves, is green and is showy in a 6-inch pot.

The Shamrock Plant . . .

The name shamrock is derived from the Celtic word for clover, which also has three leaflets. St. Patrick is said to have used the shamrock to illustrate the principle of the trinity to the people he converted to Catholicism in Ireland. It’s unclear if the shamrock St. Patrick used was the Irish clover, Trifolium repens, or the native wood sorrel, Oxalis acetosella. It wasn’t O. regnellii, which is native to South America.

The shamrock is easy to grow as a houseplant. Give it bright, indirect light. Allow the soil to dry slightly before re-watering. Fertilize with a houseplant fertilizer during the summer months and, if possible, relocate the plant to a shaded patio for a summer vacation out-of-doors. Eventually, it will start declining in appearance. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong, this is just the nature of the plant. Similar to your outdoor Tulip bulbs, the plant needs to rest. Allow it to dry down completely. Begin watering in early February to force the plant back into growth. Or relegate the plant to the compost pile and start fresh next year.

Four Leaf Clover Trivia . . .

The four leaf clovers come from the plant Trifolium repens, white clover. This plant is commonly trifoliolate (three leaf segments), but occasionally a four-leaflet mutant appears.

The four leaf clover is a universally accepted symbol of good luck with its origin ages old. According to legend, Eve carried a four leaf clover from the Garden of Eden.

In 1620, Sir John Melton wrote: “If a man walking in the fields finds any four-leaved grass, he shall in a small while after find some good thing.”

Bunnies love clover!

An Anecdote . . .

My dad used to sow seeds of white clover in the lawn. That’s because this plant is a legume (from the family Fabaceae). Legumes have the ability to take atmospheric nitrogen and turn it into soil nitrogen that can be used by other plants – in this case, the grass. He was fertilizing the lawn.

I allow patches of white clover to flourish in my lawn, and I think it looks great. Also, the local bunnies like to eat it, so while it’s available, they leave my other plants alone.

Last summer, my neighbor stopped by to ask me if I knew why this particular weed was so bad this year. It’s all what you are used to, I guess!

And Finally, an Irish Gardening Joke . . .

What do you get if you cross poison ivy with a four-leaf clover?
A rash of good luck!

I’m getting ready to plant peas and onions in the garden. In the Greater Cincinnati area, this is the earliest you can get out and plant those crops.

Happy Gardening!

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